The Past Week of Smog in Beijing and Smog Conditions as an International Problem

PERSISTENT SMOG in Beijing for the past week has made international news, on account of the Chinese government declaring an “orange” alert for hazardous air pollution. Pictures of Beijing’s landmarks having disappeared under thick smog circulate on the Internet, along with the memes that Chinese citizens have created to make light of the situation. At levels of more than 600 micrograms per cubic meter, particulate pollution was over twenty-four times over World Health Organization’s health safety limits.

It would be an ironic time for smog to blanket Beijing, given that this was concurrent with a United Nations climate summit which took place in Paris on Monday in which Xi Jinping was in attendance. Chinese authorities have blamed the past days’ smog on poor weather conditions. However, periods of heavy smog is an endemic condition to Beijing, as a product of the coal burning factories within the city and the geography of the city as surrounded by mountains. Beijing is not even China’s most polluted city—though it has attracted more attention about its air pollution than other, more heavily polluted cities in China as Shijiazhuang or Xintai. Even in the past week, twenty-three cities across China were suffering the effects of smog, but most attention went to Beijing. And the worst smog may be yet to come.

The orange alert issued by Chinese authorities led to the closures of some roadways due to poor visibility and advisories to stay indoors. The orange alert also enacted restrictions on the activities of polluting factories in the hopes of clearing up conditions. Some have criticized that the Chinese government did not issue a “red” alert, which would have led to cancellation of schools and other activities. If a cold front has now cleared up weather conditions, it is that the skies of Beijing have cleared up…for now. But Beijing is slated to issue its first “red” alert for smog ever Tuesday.

Will China’s Environmental Woes Lead to Future Dissent?

THAT THE government can apparently conjure away air pollution when needed, like magic, has led to much dissatisfaction from Chinese citizens. Earlier this year, the terms of “APEC Blue” and “Parade Blue” were coined to refer to the spontaneous blue skies which emerged for the APEC summit and September military parade. Although recent pollution has led to a lot of gallows humor from Chinese citizens—including various memes created by netizens and an artist who created a brick by vacuuming up particulate matter from the air in Beijing over a period of time—there are also deeper dissatisfactions at work.

Given that air pollution particularly affects the young and the old, many Chinese citizens are worried about family members and loved ones. If the government can make pollution disappear so easily, why does it not do so all the time? Although in past cases of dissatisfaction against government handling of ecological and climate issues, Chinese citizens are willing to accept the claim of the government that this is needed for the greater good of economic growth, it may be that one day they will no longer accept such excuses.

As one of the most visible signs of government failings in China, air pollution is a prominent example of the issues which loom large in China concerning issues of people’s health and livelihood sacrificed in favor of economic development. Would this be another case of the government overreacting and seeing threats to its authority where none exist? Or will air pollution be an issue which will set off a powder keg of dissent one day? The possibilities for a mass social demonstrations across China are limited at present. Even when demonstrations can be unexpectedly large as we saw with the past summer’s Shanghai PX protests, any movement national in scale seems unlikely. But it often a sudden shift when apparent quiescence turns into rage.

And ultimately, it is that smog or other environmental issues are a global problem and can only be addressed on an international basis. What will it take to see environmental issues addressed on a transnational basis, with the understanding that such problems stem from unfettered capitalist growth?

Brian Hioe was one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance writer on social movements and politics, and occasional translator. A New York native and Taiwanese-American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature. He was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy from 2017 to 2018.
丘琦欣，創建破土的編輯之一，專於撰寫社會運動和政治的自由作家偶而亦從事翻譯工作。他是出生於紐約的台裔美人。他自哥倫比亞大學畢業，是亞洲語言及文化科系的碩士，同時擁有紐約大學的歷史，東亞研究及英文文學三項學士學位。

About New Bloom

New Bloom is an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific, founded in Taiwan in 2014 in wake of the Sunflower Movement. We seek to put local voices in touch with international discourse, beginning with Taiwan.